As Mr. Watts and three sailors had died, the vessel was short-handed, but not crippled; and the captain decided to prosecute his voyage without putting into any port for assistance. Mr. Lincoln was appointed chief mate, and a second mate was selected from the forecastle. Everything went along as before the storm burst upon the devoted vessel.
"How happy I am, Noddy!" exclaimed Mollie, as they sat on deck one afternoon, when she had nearly recovered her strength. "My father was saved, and I am saved. How grateful I am!"
"So am I, Mollie," replied Noddy.
"And how much we both owe to you! Wasn't it strange you didn't take the fever?"
"I think it was."
"Were you not afraid of it?"
"I didn't think anything about it, any way; but I feel just as though I had gone through with the fever, or something else."
"Why?"
"I don't know; everything looks odd and strange to me. I don't feel like the same fellow."
Mollie persisted in her desire to know how the cabin-boy felt, and Noddy found it exceedingly difficult to describe his feelings. Much of the religious impressions which he had derived from the days of tribulation still clung to him. His views of life and death had changed. Many of Bertha's teachings, which he could not understand before, were very plain to him now. He did not believe it would be possible for him to do anything wrong again. Hopes and fears had been his incentives to duty before; principle had grown up in his soul now. The experience of years seemed to be crowded into the few short days when gloom and death reigned in the vessel.